Blame It On The Drink
by controlled climb
Summary: The war's over. Life is meant to be great. Diagon Alley isn't meant to be, well, lifeless. And the pub certainly isn't meant to be booming with customers. * Birthday fic for Dramione Forever.


Written for **Dramione Forever**, for her birthday! Sorry it's so late!

* * *

Wispy fog surrounded Diagon Alley. Everyone walked with their head hung low and their eyes were trained on the pebbles that they were absentmindedly kicking at. Newspapers and posters screeched from every direction, all spreading the so-called good news:

_Harry Potter: The-Boy-Who-Would-Not-Die!_

_You-Know-Who Defeated! _

_The Golden Trio Save The Wizarding World!_

It made Katie sick. Stupid reporters that made the whole thing seem like something that should be treasured and glorified. It wasn't though. They didn't know what it was like to fight alongside _The Golden Trio_. Or what it was like when it occurred to you for the first time that Harry could lose. Those reporters were just like Rita Skeeter – they didn't have a clue what they were going on about.

She scuffled down the alley like all the witches and wizards. Her robes were black and trailing on the ground behind her. It was only when she had reached the Leaky Cauldron when she dared lift her head, and that was when asking Tom for a drink. It was a busy place now, even more so than before. It seemed that everyone seemed to be drowning their sorrows with a few glasses of firewhiskey.

Lifting the glass to her lips, Katie scanned the crowded room with curious eyes. Catching sight of one person that she had never seen drinking in life, she made her way to the other side of the room and plopped herself in the chair in front of him.

"Wood?" she questioned, her eyes widening in disbelief. "Oliver?"

He stared back her, his face emotionless as she snapped her fingers in front of him.

"Oliver." This time Katie raised her voice, demanding his immediate attention. Effortlessly plucking the glass from his hand, she glowered at him. "Since when do you drink?"

There was silence for a few moments before he retorted, "Since when do you stop me?"

Cocking her head to the side, Katie pushed the glass back towards him, shrugging. She watched as he immediately chugged the whiskey, raising her eyebrows. It just went to show how much the war had effected everyone, she supposed. Never, in all the years that she had known him nor during the hundreds of parties she'd attended with him, had she ever seen him drinking. Except for that one time... but technically it wasn't really his choice anyway, so that didn't count.

"Hurts, doesn't it?" she asked, breaking the quiet with a hesitant tone.

"You have no idea."

Biting the inside of her mouth to stop herself from snapping back at him, she said, "I was there, Oliver. I think I've got the rough idea."

"You don't know, Bell."

"Know what, Wood?"

Despite the fact that she knew him well enough to know that she ought to shut her mouth _right now_, she couldn't resist but to continue the conversation. He was annoying her now. How dare he say that? She'd been through the battle, just like he did! She had fought for her life and others. She had seen one of her closest friends d...-

Katie clamped her eyes shut, desperately trying to rid her head of _those_ images and thoughts. She could feel her heart hammering away and could hear her breaths coming out fast and short. Oliver was wrong. She knew how much it hurt. She had a very good, or rather, bad, idea about how much it hurt.

"You've never had to carry a dead boy, have you, Bell?"

Then again, maybe she didn't.

She looked away, suddenly unable to meet his eyes as his harsh words cut into her, making her relive everything that she had tried so hard to forget in the past few weeks. It all came flooding back to her. Geor - Fred. Professor Lupin. And Colin, young Colin, who had been found by Oliver. She could still remember seeing him appear with the broken - she refused to _that_ word - boy cradled in his arms. Katie hadn't known Colin. He was a good few years younger than her, after all. But no one forgets that sort of thing. That hadn't stopped her from trying though.

"True," Katie finally managed to choke out. "Uh. I'll be off then."

Standing, she quickly chugged down the rest of her drink, smiling weakly as she offered a good bye.

"Look..." Oliver broke off with a sigh. "I didn't mean it, Katie."

She raised her eyebrows. "Blaming it on the drink, are you?"

"Yeah."

And for some reason, she sat back down and gave Tom a nod, signaling for another and meanwhile pushing Oliver's glass back towards him. Because there were sometimes when you needed a mate... a mate to argue with, a mate to laugh with, a mate to mourn with and a mate to drink with.

And right now, she could really go for a drink.


End file.
